Letter: Council need to place people before profit

Letters editor

Both Scarborough Council and Robert Goodwill have championed the projects that will make the town more attractive to tourists, such as the North Bay development. While this is likely to attract more tourists and revenue to the town it will do nothing for the hidden deprivation of many residents.

Scarborough has now hit the headlines as the “low wage capital of the UK” and followed that with “bankruptcy capital”. The big ticket items being pursued by the council are at the expense of the people they should be making a priority. Cllr Bastiman can bury his head in the North Bay sands, but the problems and headlines will not go away.

People living in substandard properties, using food banks because wages are minimum or below is the reality of the Scarborough economy. New projects have to be linked to employers who pay the living wage (including Scarborough Council).

This demands more intervention and regulation together with a change of political will, so that Scarborough works for the many not the few.